Pakistan cable car rescue told in new documentary
A new documentary recounts the dramatic rescue of eight people stranded in a cable car in the Pakistan Himalayas.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story.
Three years ago, a routine journey to school turned into a terrifying ordeal for a group of children in Pakistan. Two of the three tethers on the cable car they travelled in to get to their lessons snapped above a ravine in the Himalayan foothills, leaving eight people stranded mid-air. Pictures from the scene were beamed across the world, and the rescue operation dominated global news for an entire day.
Now filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi has turned that event into a documentary called Hanging by a Wire. The film draws on footage shot by locals, including a drone operator whose clips helped attract international attention. Naqvi said that footage transformed how the story could be told. "It's literally an action thriller film happening in front of your eyes," he explained.
The filmmaker deliberately chose to frame the story differently from typical disaster documentaries about the global south. "I'm not going to show you victims here. I'm gonna show you action heroes," he said. He wanted to use the language of a Hollywood thriller but reappropriate it, so that "brown people with beards" become action heroes. He described this as a deliberate act of subversion.
Central to the story are two women. Samar, a local journalist, helped get the story picked up internationally and amplified the voices of the stranded boys. Sonia, the head of police, led the rescue efforts. Naqvi said it was important to show their roles because they were integral to the operation and because it reflected a more realistic and true face of Pakistan.
The film also features Sahib Khan, a self-trained local responder who arrived on the scene with a homemade contraption. The authorities initially did not trust him and even forbade him from attempting a rescue. He disobeyed, successfully rescued one child, and was then told to stand down. Naqvi acknowledged the authorities' caution but noted that the community itself was instrumental in filming and sharing the story to attract help.
All eight people were eventually saved, and the documentary captures both the tension of the day and the diverse group of people who came together to bring the ordeal to a successful end.
On screen
Stills are sampled automatically at 60-second intervals. Where shown, the still is the nearest available frame from the relevant broadcast segment and is included to show what was on screen during that part of the broadcast. A still may not correspond to the exact second of a quoted phrase.
Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, mapped by channel. Ordered by how many channels carried each claim.
| Claim | Channel 4 |
|---|---|
| Footage shared by a local drone operator attracted international media attention. | |
| Local responder Sahib Khan disobeyed authorities to rescue a child. | |
| Two of three cable car tethers snapped above a Himalayan ravine, stranding eight people. |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
Channel 4 focused on an interview with filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi, exploring his choices in making the documentary Hanging by a Wire. The coverage emphasised his goal of subverting typical Western narratives about the global south, instead presenting the Pakistani subjects as action heroes. It also highlighted the roles of local heroes, including a drone operator, a self-trained responder, and two female figures, as integral to the rescue.
- “I'm not going to show you victims here. I'm gonna show you action heroes.”
- “At the core of the story, you also have two incredibly powerful female protagonists.”
- “Local dude turns up, says, look, I can help. The authorities, they don't trust him.”
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.